JUDITH PEDROZA

Tuesday, May 08, 2018

“I am a piano tuner”, a young man explains while he is waiting for his appointment
with the psychiatrist. He is accompanied by his mother. Two other families with
patients are waiting and Moisés' family has been the last to get a “token.” Tokens
are literally like an old game. The hospital gives 15 tokens for specialty, but
psychiatry has already fixed ten patients for a Friday consultation. The
hospital used to be an old school, now transformed. It is run by a group of
nuns and doctors who have jobs in large hospitals where they charge more than
five times what they charge here in the community hospital. They practice one
day a week for half a day, giving the hospital a very good reputation. Their
furniture is very old, but it serves the needs of patients. Every Friday,
families who already know each other and who have children with similar
illnesses, meet there. Curiously, all patients are young males. Moisés is the
oldest of all. There is a 12-year-old who his mother says is uncontrollable and
cannot stop talking all day. Yet, the whole time in that room, the mother is
the one speaking and the boy is quietly attentive. Big, curious eyes, the child
just seems bored and his mother seems stressed. Moisés is the patient of this
other family, 45 years old already. He left behind a past of economic triumphs,
money, and maximum creativity. He does not know how to do it again. He became
ill at age 24 at the time when he opened his own business, started a family,
and then his wife divorced him after one year of marriage. He closed his
business, brought all their furniture there and locked himself inside for
months. He would not eat, did not want to, his parents did everything even
losing some of their assets to pay his debts. From there he went in and out of
different hospitals and treatments that never gave continuity, his parents
could not get him stabilized. Her younger sister tried everything. Presently, she makes another attempt, because he
does not want to go to the other side of town, to the best specialty hospital.
So he was brought to this small hospital, a ten-minute walk from home.

Families there
talk, looking for something, remedies, tips, dialogue. They have stories to
tell, details of the disease, hobbies, droll things. The disease does not allow
the mood to disappear. Emotions run from worry, crying, to laughter. “We are
alive”, the piano tuner’s mother says. She explains how her son has been in
therapy for a year and a half and how he decided to leave the university. He
just wants to make music because he has a special ear that allows him to earn
money, tuning pianos in small state orchestras, and he participates as a guest
musician in popular presentations. The piano tuner is 22 and discusses
science and philosophy with Moisés.

The piano tuner
has read Nietzsche’s Human,
All Too Human, Ecce
Homo, the work of Freud and one of St. Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Contra Gentiles.
The Piano Tuner makes Moisés attend to him. There is a kind of
alternate joy. It is a small waiting room for happiness. It is a therapy
itself, where patients and families are recognized as a common group who share
a half day on Friday waiting for an appointment.

The piano
tuner explains that in order to tune a piano, first, you have to check the
central note, hence the LA 440. Then, you begin to check the octaves of each
note: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, all frequencies with the same pulse, and there
are parts: fifths, fourths, sixths, sevenths. When the central note is tuned,
this tune becomes the bone side of each note, which is called temperament. It
is like a cube. Harmonics must have the same speed and the piano has to be very
sweet with subtle colors, marrow notes. When the piano tuner talks about a
sweet piano, the first image that comes to mind is Rafal Blechacz playing
Szymanowski’s "Piano Sonata." It was love at first sight, the first
time I heard this young polish musician playing and talking about his music
with impressionist-expressionist and melodic tunes, slow comings on the piano
and then using his full hands. In this room, which only seems to have a
disease, there is music, melodies of talk that lead to another life.

There is
another group in the small waiting room of happiness: the pharmacists, those
who sell new medicines, fresh from the laboratory, new features for the
psychiatrist. Medications for those who suffer from a mental or emotional
illness are the most expensive in the market. In Mexico, more than half the
population does not have health insurance and even this kind of medicine is
scarce in public hospitals due to high costs and the fact that mental health is
not considered a disease or a priority. It is classified as an incurable disease.
But there is always hope. Many patents for these drugs are nearing expiration,
which means that local or national laboratories can produce them at lower
costs. At the time a patent expires, the laboratories in Mexico begin to
produce affordable medication and patients begin to consume since they are
cheap and a better stabilizer for their condition. Finally, families and
patients can access the drugs, giving them more faith to hear the promises in
the corridors of pharmaceuticals, who sound like the politicians of health,
offering health as a commodity controlled drug. If the patient had tremors from
using the older drugs, the pharmaceutical representatives would draw from their
brochures to reassure the patient, generating trust between families, patients,
and pharmacists. A fiction to heal is also part of the Friday half day.
Pharmacists are the hope inside the room.

Four weeks
pass and patients are already using this medicine. They feel better
and there are some signs of improvement in their quality of life. Some of them
feel dignified because they have the energy to do things, to follow the course
of their lives, making plans. It's another Friday before noon, the room is
filled with patients each time, the same families, the same products. Today, it
is time to buy the sweets of health. The mother of the boy who never stops
talking is happy. The medicine has had a positive effect on her child. The
doctor gives the prescription for the next dose. The mother orders the
medication from the pharmacist, who has a leather briefcase, impeccable suit
and shoes bought from the San Diego outlets. She tells about her weekend trips
to California. Everybody is observing her high heels while she organizes her
first order. It will be 380 pesos. The mother reacts, “But
last month the medicine was 190 pesos. If I am correct, the patent had already
been released.” The pharmacist with pretty shoes and leather briefcase answers,
“Yes indeed, the patent had been released, but the product offered and taxes
that the government extracted from these labs this month make the drug double
in price. It won’t be a fixed price. Next month, it’s possible that
the price doubles again, and so the product will rise until its cost of
production and profits are not eaten by taxes and can stabilize at a fixed
price. It is a fact that next month it will double.” Families are angry.
Another family member breaks into the discussion, “I am sorry, but if you had
this information before why did you not inform us? If the drug is tripled, it
will be impossible to continue with treatment and that causes harm to the
patient's health.” The pharmacist answers, “I am sorry ma'am. I'm only selling
the product, the doctor is the one who suggests and makes the prescription.”
Moisés says, “But you promised to improve our quality of life, gave a kind of political
speech and we trusted you.” The pharmacist answers with a violent tone, “Excuse
me, I'm not a politician. I am a vendor. My responsibility is to sell. I am not
able to resolve your life.”

It's like
finishing and leaving someone with a new life, and a new voice, the piano tuner
says.

A caffè sospeso (Italian: suspended coffee) or pending coffee is a cup of coffee paid for in advance as an anonymous act of charity. The tradition began in the working-class cafés of Naples, where someone who had experienced good luck would order a sospeso, paying the price of two coffees but receiving and consuming only one. A poor person enquiring later whether there was a sospeso available would then be served a coffee for free.

Thinking about the Tonino Guerra Tale.- Caffè Sospeso

Someone wants to escape...

A curtain flirts through the window of a building. It is the only one. The curtain is determined to be rebellious and has decided to play with the air that comes after an open door, plays to walk abroad. The other windows of the building are kept locked because in September, in Graz, a slightly cold air begins, but this curtain does not hesitate to come and go.Passing by, I 'm looking at the curtain and it seems to want to tell me something, "Look at me, look how I wave the colors of the flowers in my autumn pattern; I have no fear, someone in their carelessness left me here with only a moment to meet you.Stay there. Look at me.I don’t know how long the door will be open." Why don’t you come over here? Surely from here, you would appreciate all who walk with their bread in hand toward their homes. I have never seen someone in Graz walk with a coffee in hand. That's for people from America, who are always in a rush, but this is a city of contemplation. Right now, if you look up, you could appreciate the beauty of this, my home. Sacred time of this building has colored those dark shadows on the walls around the windows … I stop, but it's hard because I'm in a conversation with the curtain. I've always hated those who need to take a picture of every meaningful moment; there are images that only live in experience and memories. The photograph is never a good reference to the experience, but this curtain wants to stay as an image.

After 20 minutes of contemplation, I have to wait for the time frame and flirting. Here you are curtain; I know you want to reach the cables hanging in a perfect horizontal and linear way. Why did I have to encounter you? I imagine your home with old books. Surely, from the beginning of the last century with illustrations in black and white, cups of strong coffee, those that do not let you sleep for three days. I would let you escape every day with a promise to return.

Thus, you would conquer the bread walkers. I'm standing here talking to you from a distance again. The bread walkers are curious, asking why I am looking at you. Some of them stop. You have conquered them as well. Remember me next time. I will pass through here. I'll have a coffee in hand and you will know that I am a foreigner.

Pianos by Judith Pedroza “I am a piano tuner”, a young man explains while he is waiting for his appointment with the psychiatri...

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Bio

Judith Pedroza is an artist, writer, and organizer of independent art projects and exchanges in Mexico City, Tijuana, San Diego, and Chicago. Her subjects are dignity, emancipation, future and re-writing history. Her work had been shown in San Diego Museum of Art, Woodbury School of Architecture San Diego, La Jolla Athenaeum, ArteBA, Carillo Gil Museum Mexico City among others. She received an MA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Visual & Critical Studies 2015